


Widojest Week 2020

by Jade_Sabre



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Widojest Week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:21:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25114570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Sabre/pseuds/Jade_Sabre
Summary: My collection for the second Widojest Week!  This time ranging from "mildly sad" to "Jade I'd like to introduce you to the word 'fluff,' we'd all appreciate if you two could get to know each other."
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 28
Kudos: 99
Collections: Widojest Week 2020





	1. marion lavorre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marion overhears a private moment between Caleb and a friend.

The Mighty Nein was set to sail to the peace talks in two days, and they were very busy with preparations. Marion understood this, understood that her daughter was involved in matters far beyond the limited scope of the comforts she offered within the Chateau, and she tried not to begrudge those matters the time that they took. Jester had always wanted to see the world, to make a difference, to make her mark, and of course she was so proud of her.  
  
And worried. But dwelling on that didn’t do much good.   
  
Still, with the Brenattos off hunting for an apartment and the Mighty Nein scattered throughout the town, the Chateau was as quiet as it’d been in the first days after Jester’s initial departure, and Marion found she hadn’t missed the silence. She had had a few morning appointments—mostly initial consultations, tea and scones and the subtle questions and judgments she could practically do in her sleep—and now she was holding a book and not reading it, listening to the sounds of the city as the breeze rustled her curtains and wondering where amidst its streets Jester wandered.  
  
And then she heard, indistinct and undeniable, a voice coming from Jester’s room.  
  
She’d set down her book and gone four steps towards the door before she realized that it couldn’t possibly be Jester’s voice, as firstly her daughter was never loud enough to be heard through the solid wall between their rooms, and secondly the voice was unmistakably male. Which didn’t preclude the possibility of Jester being present, as well, which would be…  
  
Marion had tried very hard not to be a prying mother, and had mostly succeeded. Had perhaps succeeded too well, in Jester’s younger years, and her recent successes were more the product of distance than effort on her part. And if Jester had invited one of her male companions into her room, well, that didn’t necessarily _mean_ anything. They’d proven themselves to be good friends, if nothing else, and her little girl was still safe, and—  
  
He—whoever he was—was still talking. She stepped closer to the wall, hesitated, and then—for all their differences, she _was_ her daughter’s mother—gently pushed aside the tapestry she’d hung to help muffle the sounds of her work in order to press her ear against the wood and listen.  
  
She still couldn’t make out the individual words, and she couldn’t detect a rhythm to the conversation, a give-and-take to his pauses indicating an interlocutor. She was fairly certain, however, that she recognized the accent, and it surprised her.  
  
And because she was lonely, and she loved her daughter, and she’d— _wondered_ , she slipped through her receiving chamber and into the hallway. Bluud snorted when he saw her, a question, but she placed a finger to her lips and he nodded, crossing his arms and dropping his chin to his chest. Jester’s door wasn’t too far from her own, and from where she stood she could see someone had left it cracked open, though perhaps not on purpose. She hesitated again. Perhaps he was merely working; he’d stayed behind before, with his books and his sheaves of high-quality paper; but he’d been mostly silent then, and she was curious.  
  
So she stepped quietly until she stood with her back against the wall, right next to the thin sliver of a view into Jester’s room, and she listened.  
  
“…maybe you can come with us,” he was saying, and she frowned. “Or I don’t know. Maybe you wouldn’t want to. Maybe the tunnels were enough.” He sighed, a pause, no answer, and then he said, “I know, I know. You’d be bigger and stronger. But so are the monsters, you know.” Another pause. “And the worst ones are cunning, and that’s much harder to fight.”  
  
He paused again, longer and heavier this time, and then he said, “I just don’t understand the appeal.” Her frown deepened. What on _earth_ —“Look at you. So… _slobbery_. Now look at Frumpkin.” The light dawned. “Is he drooling? No. Why—oh please don’t—”  
  
And _there_ , the unmistakable thump of Nugget’s tail. “I really don’t like dogs,” he said, in the tone of a man who’d just been licked by one against his will. “I don’t know why…” He sighed again, and when he spoke his tone was much lighter, and while it didn’t sound forced Marion had listened to enough people to know feigned levity when she heard it. “Maybe you will stay with the Brenattos, _ja_? It’s good for a boy to have a pet, and you can protect Yeza and Luc when Veth comes with us. And when she…goes…” His voice dwindled, and she had to turn and shift until her head leaned against the doorframe in order to hear him. “… _home_ … _scheisse_ ,” he hissed, and Nugget whined. “It is good,” he said again, “good for a family to be together, and sometimes she can…still come with us. Or she could be with us and sometimes she could go home and this is stupid,” he said. “You’re stupid, Widogast, and she belongs with her family.”  
  
Nugget whined and thumped his tail again, and this time she heard the cat hiss. “It’s all right, Frumpkin,” he said wearily, and then he said, “Ah—ah—” and she heard a rustling and a creaking, as if he’d shifted from where he’d been sitting. “I really don’t like dogs,” he said, though this time he sounded a little more apologetic. “You know they say you never get over those childhood fears, _ja_? Though I was older,” he said, and then more softly, “I was older…but still a child. We were all children. _Ach_ ,” he said, and she could hear the Zemnian phlegm in the word. “Excuses nothing.”  
  
She thought she heard creaking wood again, and then realized, as the silence stretched on, that the cat was purring, and then Nugget’s tail thumped again and the wizard said, in the same too-light tone, “You know, she still has the weasel?” A thump, and he said, “She left you here to keep you safe but she took the weasel. And somehow it’s still alive. I don’t know how. It really defies belief, when you think about it. But,” and the rest came as a sigh, “so does so much, when it comes to…her.”  
  
One of her eyebrows went up. “You know her,” he continued, almost asking a question, gauging something. “You know how she…is. Belief is a big part of it, _ja_? Between you and me,” a breath, “and Frumpkin, I am a bit worried about her. Not about _him_ ,” and he almost scoffed, “and we can pull it off, but I worry…stupid. _Stupid_.”  
  
She felt cold, then, icy tendrils of cold worming their way into her heart, at the loathing in his voice that had been matched only by the fondness with which he spoke of her daughter.  
  
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, though whether to Frumpkin or Nugget, she didn’t know. “Of course I’ll try—but who am I, to take care of her? She needs—she _deserves_ — _ach_ , of course, but—”  
  
Another pause, long enough that she began to think she probably ought to stop eavesdropping before he noticed. But she was also a woman who lived to hear others’ deepest, darkest secrets, and to ease them if she could; and so she stayed, pressing her head so hard into the wood that it hurt.  
  
“You are,” he said, light and brittle, “barking up the wrong tree, eh? Don’t be all buddy-buddy with me. You’d be better off trying Fjord, probably. Or even Beauregard. They’re much better at…protecting people. And…other things.”   
  
She had to press her lips together to keep from sighing. Oh, what a tangled web her daughter’s friends had woven. And knowing Jester, she sat cluelessly in the center. Or perhaps not so cluelessly, but in _that_ case…and her early letters had seemed so set on the charming half-orc, though _of_ _course, Mama, I remember what you told me_ , but between the lines she’d gotten the sense too that the half-orc had either been clueless or unwilling. And if that had changed—well, so had Jester, that much was obvious. And perhaps…  
  
The cold tendrils tightened their grip, and her heart ached, listening to him despair, thinking more of how practiced her daughter was at bearing disappointment.  
  
“She loves _you_ , in any case,” he said. “Yes, I know she told you I love you so much but that wasn’t strictly—oh—”  
  
She could _hear_ Nugget’s tongue slapping against something, presumably the wizard’s face, over and over again. Frumpkin _mrow_ ed in the low, dangerous way cats did before escalating into shrieking and clawing, but Nugget continued undeterred.  
  
“This—” as he forced the words out around Nugget’s assault “—is—not—as—pleasant—as—people—seem—to—think— _augh_ ,” and Nugget’s tail thumped enthusiastically. “I _really_ ,” he said, “do not like dogs.”  
  
Nugget whined.  
  
“I am going to go,” he announced, with a rustle that she presumed meant he was standing up, and she pushed away from the wall, poised to slip back to her chambers.  
  
And then he said, not a little begrudgingly, “It was good to see you.”  
  
She smiled, and then he said, very quietly, “I’ll try.”  
  
She was back in front of her own door before Jester’s creaked open and had closed it before she heard him walking down the hallway towards the rooms she’d arranged for the Nein. And then she stood, alone again, in the middle of her receiving room, empty-handed and grasping at nothing, wanting to help and knowing she shouldn’t pry. She was, after all, the Ruby of the Sea; people came to _her_ for help; she didn’t seek them out. Her place was to stay here, waiting with open arms ready to hug and a shoulder to cry on, hands to stroke her daughter’s hair and a quiet soothing murmur to console.   
  
But she wanted—to warn Jester, to warn her daughter against men who thought too little of themselves, and _oh_ she’d never phrased it that way, had she? She’d warned against love, yes, little good that seemed to have done, and against false promises, true, and she knew her little girl was too wise to be trapped by one against her will. But how to explain to a child who wanted nothing more than to see everything the world had to offer the danger inherent in someone who couldn’t be content with what they held in their arms because they weren’t content with themselves?  
  
Perhaps she already knew, though, or had figured it out. Not that knowing was enough; sometimes the heart simply wanted what it wanted.  
  
And oh, the wizard wanted her daughter. If she hadn’t been so worried, she might have had a little chuckle over that, the juxtaposition of the charming but straight-laced Zemnian intellectual with her wildly mischievous trickster. He found her freeing, of course, no doubt enjoyed the excuse to play tricks of his own in her presence—that mind couldn’t solely think of magic _all_ the time.  
  
But she couldn’t laugh at it, not really, because he hated himself. She was the Ruby of the Sea, and she’d heard the story more times than she could remember; she knew how people’s pasts haunted them, how the habit of constantly brooding over their misdeeds twisted people inside-out, turning them into shriveled shells with little left to give the present moment, let alone consider for the future. Jester had told her a little of his past herself, warning her against the companions he’d forsaken, and so she guessed, a little, the source of his pain. And she wanted—  
  
And she was dangerously close to wanting to help him. For his sake, of course. But also for Jester’s.   
  
But she knew in her heart—she’d seen it too many times—she’d _lived_ it—and her role was not to pry, not to meddle. Venturing beyond the boundaries of the Chateau, even figuratively—she’d attend a party, with her daughter by her side, but this—too much, too soon, and the wound Babenon had left in her heart ached at the thought of it.  
  
And she could not involve herself with him, anyway, because at the end of the day she had to protect Jester. Had to be her daughter’s safe refuge, without any hint of bias or concern for the other party.   
  
And with that thought in mind, she lifted her head and straightened her shoulders, and returned to her seat and her book, the picture of professional grace and ease. But she heard the dull roar of the ravenous city, smelled the traitorous salty sea on the breeze, and there she sat, always watching, never engaging, and what would she have been instead, she wondered, if he had come for her? and what would her daughter become, if someone broke her heart?  
  
And so she watched the world go by out her window, and worried, and waited for Jester to come home.


	2. dressed up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jester reflects on Caleb's appearance throughout their time together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! they're both in this one!
> 
> hope you enjoy. :-)
> 
> EDIT: I TOTALLY FORGOT TO THANK [PERAHN](perahn.tumblr.com/) (AKA [FIONAVAR](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fionavar/pseuds/Fionavar)) FOR HER HELP IN WRITING THE ENDING.
> 
> THANK YOU FOR HELPING WRITE THE ENDING YOU'RE A DOLL <3

She’d always known he was handsome.  
  
Always, from the moment they met, from the very first time his blue eyes had flashed up to meet hers in confusion and alarm. Sure, he’d been incredibly stinky and dirty and his hair had been all over the place, but his eyes had met hers and she’d thought, _damn_. And then she’d said the first thing that popped into her head, which was that he should take a bath. Because seriously, what was the point of being that hot if he was going to hide it under layers and layers of filth?  
  
(She didn’t know he’d taken her advice, that his feet had taken him right where she’d told him to go. The very first time, and not the last.)  
  
Yasha had helped him shave, and she’d gotten her first glimpse at the younger man who lay beneath. At the man who didn’t _want_ to be dirty, who wanted to be friends but was just still _so_ awkward and far too easy to tease. Who looked so cute when he blushed, with that little dimple in his chin. Who sang loud and proud when he was drunk, if his dancing left a little to be desired.  
  
A man who loved someone else. Who’d _been_ loved in return.  
  
And why not? He was handsome and clever and brave. He’d come with the others to their rescue, after all. And he was thoughtful, and surprisingly generous, and compassionate, and understanding, and the longer they traveled together the more she understood that he saw himself as none of these things, for some reason she couldn’t fathom. And so she made it her mission—one of her missions, gosh, she had _so much work to do_ —to enlighten him.  
  
Nott was the perfect accomplice, because she believed in him too. And so together they wrote Astrid and together they discussed his perfect chin and together neither of them said what they really thought, really felt about him; except that he was handsome, and deserved happiness.  
  
They’d gone to Xhorhas and given the Bright Queen her Beacon back and she’d been pretty angry about that, actually, no matter how brave it had been, no matter the anguish on his face when he’d done it. Sometimes he was selfish, and stupid, and distracted. He was afraid, too, terrified of his past and the people within it, of their inevitable reunion. And sometimes he was just— _off_ , from the rest of the group, from the way everyone else was feeling, whether he was consumed in research or worrying while everyone else relaxed. Sometimes he didn’t seem to know how to smile, or have fun. And underneath all of that he still harbored the darkness he’d been taught, and sometimes she thought he walked a knife’s edge, keeping it under control.  
  
She went shopping to try to distract herself, to cheer herself up, and Yasha revealed she’d been sent to get him—clothes? Clean clothes. _New_ clothes, after Xhorhasian fashions, as if he perhaps could care about such things, given the choice.  
  
He thought his goose was cooked, and in the face of his inevitable doom she watched him blossom from the _freedom_ of it, at least in this place, under the cover and safety of endless darkness. The clothes looked good on him, and so did the relief.  
  
(She didn’t notice that he thought her new clothes looked good in turn. She danced to hide her sorrow, as she always did; she didn’t notice that he noticed that, too.)  
  
They crisscrossed two countries, trying to save Yasha, to save the world, the _world_ , her eyes blinded by tears of frustration and sorrow and loss as she tried to do too many impossible things at once. She revived the dead and scried the damned and hoped and _believed_ , even when they failed again, and again, and again, until they chased their failures to Rexxentrum to put an end to them, one way or another.  
  
And then they walked to a castle and she saw his face, stripped of any emotion but fear and the attempt to control it, not just handsome but _dear_ , as dear to her as her mother’s, and she couldn’t stand to see him so lonely and scared. She reached out and took his hand, knobby and scarred as it was, and held it for as long as he would let her. And she watched him in the throne room, his face as carefully blank and political as those of the ones who’d taught him, and for a moment she saw him dressed as one of them, hair neatly trimmed, and he’d be so popular with all the ladies, probably, with his perfectly Zeminian features and his polite turn of phrase and his powerful magic, not a stumble or stutter in sight; and she could see him smiling, his eyes empty and cruel.  
  
_Bren_ , his old teacher called him, but no, Bren was that man she’d imagined, an echo of someone else’s timeline, that’s what Essek had called it. The man standing beside her, terrified and brave, awkward and so, so _good_ , didn’t belong to the Empire or the Assembly or even the Dynasty; he was— _theirs_ , and she glared at anyone who thought they might be able to take him away.  
  
(She didn’t allow herself to think— _mine_ ; she didn’t allow herself to know that he issued himself the same denial of her.)  
  
She saw him in the hallway of the Xhorhaus, hamster-unicorns and lollipops gently floating and casting an amber glow across his face as his gaze poured into her, filled her to overflowing with—with—joy and gratitude and excitement and the feeling that someone _believed_ in her. He believed in her, and he didn’t have to, like Mama did; but he chose to, _wanted_ to. And standing there, looking at him looking at her, she found herself memorizing his face, so that she might remember it as well as he remembered hers; and she felt herself lock it away in her heart, in chambers she hadn’t yet explored, secret and safe until the time came to revisit it.  
  
He believed in her when she didn’t believe in herself, and she tried her best to do the same for him, even as he kept supporting her through all the mess with revealing the Traveler and saving Caduceus’s aunt, a quiet voice at her side and a steady believing hand at her back. And she wished she could—show him, show him how she saw him, how—  
  
He had a new spell to copy. She could see the barely contained giddiness in his eyes, and _oh_ he looked so boyish when he smiled. And then he pressed five platinum in her hand, and trusted her, the coins a cool shield against the warmth of his palm over hers. She teased him in return, but she already saw him in her mind’s eye, an echo of a timeline yet to unfold.   
  
Luckily, the threads of this destiny lay within her grasp. Or at least, within the grasp of the extremely talented seamstresses of Nicodranas.  
  
He accepted the package with no visible apprehension, and she disappeared to her mama’s rooms to slide into her own dress, frilly and fancy and lovely, and she couldn’t help preening a little before helping her mama get ready too. But she left her mama behind to gather the last of her courage, and made her way downstairs to join Caduceus at a table, waiting for the rest of them to descend. They exchanged a glance full of anticipation, though his seemed less eager than hers, more satisfied and peaceful. The firbolg knew they’d look good, and calmly awaited their approval; she couldn’t wait to _see_ , not just the results of her handiwork but also—  
  
He came first and she leapt to her feet and caught her breath at the sight of him, a slim shadow against the stairs until he extended his arm and rested his hand on the banister, revealing the flash of red-and-gold damask within. His hair, tied at the nape of his neck, fell just as strikingly against the black of his cloak, the sharp lines accentuating the cut of his jaw, drawing her eye to the dimple in his chin—his chin, lifted ever so slightly, his shoulders straight instead of hunched, every inch of him acknowledging the dignity of the cloak and rising magnificently to meet it. He looked—proud, and strong, and capable, a little mysterious, a little aloof; but as his gaze met hers, his eyes sparkled with the same anticipatory delight she’d seen as he dove into his new spell.  
  
She smiled back at him, her stomach fluttering, her knees weak, and to hide it she grabbed at her skirt and drew it wide around her, twisting a little to let the layers rustle. When she looked back to him he was rubbing the back of his neck, watching her, and his gaze jumped back to hers, almost guilty.  
  
“You have done well,” he said, and his expression changed again, eyes bright and grateful and proud—of _her_. “I will fit in.”  
  
_Oh_ , and he would, but he’d stand out, too, against the flashy finery of Nicodranas, against the drab décor of the Empire; he’d be _himself_ , every inch their equal in appearance and their better in everything that mattered.  
  
And everything about him that mattered was everything about him that she—and he looked just as she’d imagined except more, because he was _real_ , and she hoped—she hoped he knew—  
  
She smiled, hopeless to put it into words, and said simply, “You look really nice, Caleb.”  
  
But then, she’d always known that.  
  
“Thank you,” he said, for more than just the clothes, and for an endless moment they drank each other in, though she knew they’d both deny it. But she glimpsed in his eyes that he _knew_ how she saw him, even if he didn’t quite believe it himself; that at least, for a moment, he’d seen himself that way, too. And for a moment in his eyes she saw _herself_ , beautiful and sparkling and more precious than any jewel, and instinctively she shrank away from it, because of course she was but a little sapphire and even if she was beautiful now she wasn’t—  
  
But in his eyes, she _was_ , and in hers he was the same, always, no matter what they wore or how badly they smelled; and for a little eternity, existing in each other's eyes, they were—enough.


	3. fairy tale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jester tells Caleb a bedtime story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am probably not the first person to have this idea and neither will I be the last, but I just saw this so clearly in my mind that I couldn't resist. Hope you enjoy!

Normally he wouldn’t have been above decks after dark at all, as a day at sea under the tropical sun was exhausting enough even for someone who wasn’t busy about the ropes. But after their first full day of sailing, the enormity of what had just happened hit him all over again and he hadn’t been able to sleep a wink. He’d stumbled through his morning duties, fallen face-first into his pillow after lunch, and consequently found himself awake long after he should have been asleep, though not for the first time. More strangely, he found himself wishing for company.  
  
So he’d left his cabin, tiptoed past a snoring Veth, and made his way to the deck above, intending to ask Orly some casual question about sailing by star charts. And then his feet had touched the deck and he’d looked up and seen the stars and stopped, absorbed in the immensity of the sight. The moons had set early, so from horizon to horizon the inky blue-black sky stretched above him, around him, the familiar constellations lost amidst stars he’d never seen, more than he would have ever guessed existed as a boy lying beneath them in the Zemni Fields, with the mountains hemming him in and the lights of the city glowing like a proverbial north star. But these stars, and the fathomless black of the sea below them, carried a far more powerful magic than anything in Rexxentrum, and as he stood on the deck and craned his neck to try to see everything at once, he fell under their gentle spell, and his steps took him unconsciously towards the prow.  
  
And then his eyes fell from the sky above to a shadow ahead, and he stopped several feet short of his destination. Once he might have told himself he was trying not to disturb her, but he was weary of that, weary of the deception, comfortable with the loathing; and so instead he simply looked at her, limned in starlight, arms crossed and resting on the railing, head tilted up to the sky, tail dancing mindlessly along her knees; and he thought to himself, _beautiful_.  
  
And then she turned her head and said, “Hi, Caleb,” and any sense of comfort deserted him.  
  
“Hello,” he said, after a five-second pause. “Jester.”  
  
But he didn’t move, and so for a longer pause they just looked at each other, ten seconds, twenty, thirty. She could see him clearly, he thought, and he wondered what she saw. He didn’t have much to offer, at the end of the day both literally and metaphorically, and surely she’d seen it all by now. And yet she kept looking.  
  
 _And what’s your excuse?_ he thought to himself, but he already knew the answer to that, and he really needed to stop staring.  
  
But she tilted her head, just enough of a jerk to invite him to join her, and once again his feet took over before his mind could catch up and he finished his journey, coming to stand at her side.  
  
And she smiled at him when he arrived, _smiled_ , left him breathless as she finally turned her head and returned her gaze to the horizon. This was a problem. It was a _problem_ , as his heart stuttered in his chest and his eyes lingered on her face in profile and his hands _yearned_ —  
  
He gripped the railing with his traitorous hands and forced his gaze to the horizon as well and said, conversationally, “What brings you up here tonight?”  
  
“Oh,” she said, “just the wind, I guess,” and he didn’t detect any sad undercurrents, any doubt or littleness in her voice, just a light, easy peace, and he felt his own shoulders relax a little. “It’s a beautiful night.”  
  
“ _Ja_ ,” he said, still not looking at her, still seeing her in the glitter of the stars on the distant whitecaps.  
  
“What about you?” she asked, not quite as lightly. He risked a glance at her and she was watching the horizon as carefully as he was. Not wanting to pry, not wanting to push, knowing he had his boundaries, inviting him to share and aware he might turn her down. Holding herself in reserve as well, just in case.  
  
She was wise to guard herself against him, he told himself. He wasn’t worth the investment she wanted to make, and she’d be better off this way.  
  
But he knew she didn’t like it, knew it made her unhappy, and in the depths of his rotten soul he hated himself for making her unhappy. Not that he had any _choice_ —and of course if he _did_ bare his soul to her she’d be repulsed anyway—but he also hated watching her feel as if she couldn’t be… _herself_ , had to pretend or perform to what someone else wanted. He wanted her to be _free_ , and he wanted her to be free with him. But she needed to be free _from_ him.  
  
He loved her and he was too selfish to let her go and yet he couldn’t bear the thought—  
  
Her shoulders drooped; he’d taken too long to answer. And in his haste to make up for it he said something close to the truth. “I—couldn’t sleep,” he said. “Decided to get some fresh air.”  
  
“Nightmares?” she asked.  
  
“No,” he said, and she glanced at him as if surprised at his honesty. “More—disbelief. I can’t believe we—they—did it. I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop, I think.”  
  
She blew out her breath in a laugh, and this close he could see that she was smiling a little, and his heart ached. “It’s pretty crazy,” she agreed. “They just set up a couple mirrors across from each other and now poof! the war is over.” Then she wrinkled her nose and said, “I mean, kind of, if what Essek said is true.”  
  
“Well,” he said, because this had kept him awake at night as well, “they do still have another one, so. There are reckonings yet to come. But,” he said, as her brow furrowed, “hopefully they won’t involve so many innocent civilians. Or the armies. Hopefully it will just be…the ones against the others.”  
  
“Yeah,” she said, her hands wrapping around her elbows, drawing her arms closer. He’d worried her. Wonderful.  
  
“But,” he said, “that is a problem for another day. Now, we’re on our way to help you, _ja_?”  
  
“Yeah,” she said, with another smile this time. “I can’t really sleep, either, but I think I’m…excited?”  
  
“Yeah?” he said in turn.  
  
“Yeah,” she said, her smile growing. “Like, I was kind of conflicted, and then, like, _really_ stressed about it, and honestly there’s still a lot we’ve got to figure out and stuff? But I think,” and she paused, leaned farther over the railing, her tail rising up behind her, “I think we can pull it off, and I think it will be…fun.”  
  
“Hopefully,” he said, and she looked at him, sidelong, still smiling, and for a moment he lost his train of thought. “That is,” he said, fumbling to regain it, “from what I’ve seen of him, it wouldn’t be much of a gathering in honor of the Traveler if it wasn’t…fun.”  
  
“Oh, yeah,” she said, and then she leaned in towards him, waggling her eyebrows, and he found himself smiling in return. “I mean, there’s going to be a _lot_ of tricksters there. You’d better watch your step.”  
  
He fought back a grin, ignored the tired voice telling him this was a bad idea, and leaned towards her, dropping his chin and meeting her gaze with what he hoped was a serious look in his eyes. “Well,” he said, and her lips curved in anticipation and he would lose himself if he paid too much attention to them, “I guess it’s a good thing I’ve been training under his high priestess.”  
  
“ _Highest_ priestess,” she said, and the grin was threatening to break through, and if he was another man in another time he could—and she kept talking. “Oh? Have you?”  
  
“Oh yes,” he said. “I’ve been studying you for months, Lavorre.”  
  
As soon as the words left his mouth he felt the color drain from his cheeks; what a _stupid_ thing to tell her, far too close to too many uncomfortable truths, but she grinned wickedly and he lost the ability to do anything other than stare at her in habitual disbelief that anything so good and wonderful should cross his path.  
  
“ _Really_ ,” she said, and he couldn’t quite meet her gaze, though her tone indicated she was taking his words at face value, carrying on the joke. “Well, you’re lucky then. Though I might have to enlist your help against the others.”  
  
“I am at your service,” he said, as gravely as he could, hoping he hid the utter helplessness in the words.  
  
She grinned at him and he stared at her, the slight grin crossing his own face at odds with the panic in his chest. This close he could see the point on her canines; the dusting of freckles across her nose; the glitter of the various trinkets hanging from her horns; and above all the stars in her eyes, dancing, shooting stars, though he could only steal glimpses, didn’t dare look at them directly, didn’t dare _make a wish_ , but if he was another man in another time he could—  
  
Her eyes were searching his face, he realized somewhere in his desperate attempt to avoid looking at them, and eventually she straightened and looked back to the ocean, and he released a breath he hadn’t been entirely aware he’d been holding. He looked to the deck and then risked another glance at her face; the grin had softened to a smile, but at least he hadn’t done anything to dispel it completely.  
  
“Anyway,” she said, “it’s hard to worry on a night like this.” He made a noise, something between a _hmph_ and a more strangled _well_ , and she giggled. “Even for you.”  
  
He sighed and turned towards the ocean himself. “Maybe,” he said, and in any case he was at least worrying about _her_ instead of other things, and maybe that was enough.  
  
She giggled again. “Oh Caleb,” she said, dragging out his name, and his traitorous heart swelled in his too-tight chest at the fond affection in her voice because he didn’t _deserve_ and he was _lying to himself_ if he accepted it as anything but fleeting and insubstantial because if she ever learned the truth (but she would never learn the truth if he could help it—but that didn’t make it any less insubstantial, because it was based on a _lie_ ) and then she kept talking and he let the inner voices die back to their usual murmur. (That they’d once been an overwhelming cacophony; that for so long they’d been a dull, constant roar; that now they were a murmur; none of that mattered, and so what if he was lying to himself too?)  
  
“You know,” she was saying, “when we’re out here, like this, I feel like we could just go…anywhere. You know?”  
  
“ _Ja_ ,” he said, and that, at least, was true.  
  
She was quiet then, but not restlessly so, and he was content to stand beside her and soak in the silence, the water lapping at the boat, the stars flickering out at the edge of the world, and Jester next to him; and for a moment he _could_ go anywhere, or be anyone, could leave it all behind, could be nothing but sea and sky and stars burning above. He could hold all of it in his hands and bend it to his will; he could release himself and scatter to the four winds, nowhere and everywhere at once; or he could be here, with her, and pretend he was pretending when he thought there was nothing else and nowhere else he’d rather be.  
  
“So sometimes,” she said, and he glanced at her, his eyebrows lifting, but she was still staring at the sea, “when I was little, I wouldn’t be able to sleep and Mama would be working and the Traveler would come visit me,” and her voice lifted at that, even after—everything, “and he would tell me bedtime stories.”  
  
“Yeah?” he said.  
  
She glanced at him, questioning, and he gave a short nod, still half-caught in the sense of being too many things in too small a space. “And one time, he said,” and her voice deepened, a finger coming to her chin, “‘Jester, what brings sweeter dreams than the promise of a little treasure? Lay back and let me tell you about how to find Picador’s Plum.’”  
  
A good impression, he thought, and then she dove into the story and he closed his eyes and fell into the river of her voice. “And he told me that across the sea,” and he knew without looking that she was staring at the horizon, “there’s this big, beautiful city ruled by a secret dragon. Whatever that means. And from there you have to go four days north. On dusk on the fourth day, you will come across a grove of trees, which,” and she left the story and switched into commentary and he opened one eye to watch her, “you know, is pretty special in and of itself, being in the middle of the desert. But one of the trees in this grove grows an especial Elysian fruit.”  
  
“Oh,” he said, and she cut her eyes at him for interrupting, so he quieted again; but now he was watching her as she told her story to the sky and the sea, and he couldn’t keep a smile from his face.  
  
“Now,” she said, “you have to pick this fruit, but don’t eat it! If you eat it you’ll be doomed to, like, stay in the grove forever or whatever.” She dismissed doom with a wave of her hand—if only it was so easy—and went on, “And then, from _there_ you head four days to the…northwest, and you’ll come across a boulder the size of a heart.” She frowned, and his smile broadened, watching her think. He loved watching her think, even if half the time he feared what she’d say before she was done, and as she slowly kept going he found himself paying more attention to the narrow-eyed expression on her face, memorizing it, than the words she was saying. “No. The _shape_ of a heart, yeah, that’s what it was. And underneath the boulder lives a hippogriff named Okarna. Now you give her this Elysian fruit, and she will become…entranced with love for you.”  
  
He huffed a laugh, though she didn’t seem to notice, at the thought that Jester would need an Elysian fruit to convince someone to fall in love with her.  
  
“Now after she does that, you have to sing her a beautiful song that goes like this.” And then she sang, her voice husky and mysterious, catching him by surprise. He’d been expecting—well, not a song, and if she was going to sing he would’ve thought she’d be soft and silly—but she’d learned from her mother, so of course—and before he’d finished processing the bittersweet revelation, another tick on the endless tally of his own doom, she’d gone on. “Those notes exactly. And then she’ll allow you to get on her back and she will fly to this cave of wonders where you will find the magical treasure.”  
  
He looked at her expectantly, and after five seconds she looked back at him, and he raised his eyebrows and nodded at her, _go on_. She blinked at him, and he stopped counting time as they looked at each other again and instead he counted the freckles on her nose to avoid the stars in her eyes.  
  
And finally she shrugged and said, “The Traveler never told me what Picador’s Plum was.”  
  
“Seriously?” he said.  
  
She nodded and said, “I think it’s got to be pretty amazing, you know. Like,” and he saw the twinkle in her eye, the trickster’s star burning bright, “maybe a doggie in a dress that does a little dance?” He didn’t break, so she shrugged again and said, “I’m not sure. But,” and now she was a little wistful, “I’m excited to find out.”  
  
“Sounds incredible,” he said. “Do you think he has actually been there and seen it?”  
  
“I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. “Maybe. Maybe it’s something you can only see, like it’s too big to take with you or something, and it’s just the most beautiful thing and seeing it is treasure enough. Maybe it’s like a wall made of diamonds or something.”  
  
Treasure enough, he thought, looking at her, and he blinked and realized she’d noticed. But she simply said, all innocence and mischief, “Do _you_ want to see it?”  
  
He shrugged, refusing to take the bait. “Sure,” he said.  
  
Her lips curved in a smile. “And do you remember how to get there?”  
  
He narrowed his eyes back at her, a little confused, a little suspicious. “I remember everything,” he said, not quite a question.  
  
And then she propped her chin on her hands and said, “Tell me.”  
  
He frowned. “Tell you what?”  
  
“How to get there,” she said, her tail lifting and dancing near her shoulders.  
  
“But you just told me,” he pointed out.  
  
She rolled her eyes. “I _know_ ,” she said. “But you always say you remember anything, so prove it.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Tell me.”  
  
He blinked and lost focus as he investigated his recent memories. Tricky; he hadn’t been listening to _learn_ , and all of her words lingered in a miasma of beauty and love and self-loathing and quiet appreciation. Some of them were buried entirely under the fall of her hair, the simple gesture of her fingers, the curve of her lips. A lot of them were, actually, and while he could piece many of them together from context others he was less sure about, and to his horror he felt himself beginning to blush.  
  
He didn’t have to do this, he attempted to tell himself. He had nothing to prove. And then he brought himself back to the present, to the challenging smirk on Jester’s face, and knew he had no choice.  
  
“So,” he said, “when you were a little girl in Nicodranas—”  
  
Her brows knit together. “You really don’t have to—”  
  
“—sometimes your mother would sing a little—” no, that was his own thought intruding, and in any case that came later “—would tell you bedtime stories when you would get into bed.”  
  
“True,” she said, still wincing a little, and he grinned to himself.  
  
“And one time—”  
  
“Several times, actually,” she said, and he winced in turn.  
  
“—she wasn’t able to tell you stories and the Traveler came to see you and he said, ‘Jester, have I ever told you the story of the hidden treasure,’ and you said, ‘No,’ and so he told you—”  
  
“Good impression,” she commented, still propping her chin on her hands, still staring at him.  
  
He stopped. “Really?”  
  
“I mean,” she said, “for _you_ ,” and then she giggled and he scowled, blushing again. “I mean you’ve actually met him now so you’d think you’d be able to—”  
  
“Who is telling the story?” he asked, and her eyes went wide in innocent apology and he closed his and chased after the thread of memory threatening to snap in her wake.  
  
“So he told you the story of Picador’s Plum,” he said, “and you don’t really know what it is or anything but you know it’s got to be pretty good,” and he was stalling, teasing out the words, opening his eyes just enough to catch the grin of anticipation on her face. He was going to miss things, he knew, and a few of them seemed important, so he might as well bomb something big to start with. She’d said something about the sea and secret dragons and she’d been beautiful saying it and she’d probably be mad if he screwed it up, and so he went for that.  
  
“So what he told you is,” and he took a deep breath and tried to hide the wince from his face, tried to sound utterly confident in his error, “four days’ travel north out of Nicodranas lives a desert where a dragon exists,” and oh, that was actually _too_ wrong, she couldn’t believe he’d say something like that by accident, and he babbled his way back to the point, “and that’s got to be a really long way, and in the middle of this desert is a special grove that grows a special fruit and that’s pretty special in and of itself, you know—”  
  
“Did I really,” she said, and he peeked again and she looked incredulous, “say ‘special’ that many times?”  
  
He shrugged in feigned innocence and said, “Because it’s a grove in the middle of the, ah, desert, and he told you, ‘Jester, you have to pick this fruit,’ but you’re not supposed to eat it because if you eat it you know you’re going to have to stay in the grove forever or something or live there forever—”  
  
“ _Caleb,_ ” she said, exasperated, stopping him short, leaving him blinking at her. “I _know_ I did not repeat myself that—”  
  
“Who,” he said again, scrambling to return from the recesses of his stunned mind, “is telling the story?”  
  
She rolled her eyes again and waved him on. “So if you take the fruit and go four days east,” wrong, “you find a,” and she’d been thinking and he’d found it adorable and then she’d said a word but still been adorable and so he said, “heart—no, you will find a _boulder_ in the shape of a hut and under the hut is a hippogriff named,” and to cover up his failure he dropped another one, “Schmazzleboof—”  
  
“ _Schmazzleboof_?”  
  
“—and Schmazzleboof, if you give him,” she’d been female, but Jester was laughing at him and he didn’t care much about the story to start with and she was _laughing_ and he didn’t deserve it, how _dare_ he make her laugh, but the sound washed over him and he didn’t shy away from it, “this fruit and sing a special song with these specific notes—”  
  
He sang them, and he _knew_ he had that right, if nothing else because she gave him the brightest, most dazzling smile of delight in the midst of her laughter, and he stared back at her helplessly as the words kept tumbling from his mouth. “Then he will fall in love with you forever and ever,” and well, that was true, “and then you can climb onto his back and fly, fly away and then go to a special place with the fruit because I cannot remember the rest of the story,” and she was laughing again and this had been the part where she’d been singing and he gave up. “You know I get the details confused—the thing is,” he said, feeling a little less pathetic, “the Traveler never told you what Picador’s Plum is. You don’t know, maybe a little dog that does a dance or something? But whatever it is, you’re sure it’s got to be pretty good.”  
  
He shut his mouth and felt red rise from his neck to the tips of his ears as she laughed, her hands gripping the railing as she leaned away from it, laughing too hard to stand up straight. But amidst the blushing he was grinning, too, grinning like a fool, which, well, he was.  
  
“Oh Caleb,” she gasped, and his heart stuttered in his chest as she fell forward and leaned _over_ the railing, arms dangling down, still giggling. “Schmazzleboof?” she asked the side of the ship.  
  
“Well,” he said, crossing his arms and leaning on the railing just enough to see her, though once he did he realized he didn’t have anything else to say. “Yes.”  
  
“Schmazzleboof,” she repeated thoughtfully, and then she giggled and let it go in a long sigh, straightening back up as she did so. “That was really good, Caleb.”  
  
He feigned a wince. “There is no desert four days north of Nicodranas.”  
  
She pursed her lips. “True,” she conceded. “The Traveler said it was across the sea.”  
  
“Yes,” he said, and then they were looking at each other again. A breeze rippled through his hair, teased her bangs until she brushed them out of her eyes. He couldn’t tell what she saw in him, what she was looking for, but she was looking at him and lovely, and a painful smile tugged at the corner of his lips anyway.  
  
“Maybe,” she said, brushing at her hair again, tucking it behind her ear, “maybe when we’re done with Travelercon, we could head there next.”  
  
“Maybe,” he said, and immediately too many thoughts crowded his mind, none of them in agreement. They had so much work to do still in the Empire; escaping to the far end of the world would be a welcome relief from the stress of securing peace between two nations that didn’t want it. He had enemies; but they couldn’t find him, and he could just—go. But Dunamancy, and Essek, and how the others wanted to handle Essek; but his parents; and of course his enemies couldn’t find _him_ , but they could find her. They knew her now. She’d stared down Trent Ikkithon and made him blink. Trent would remember her, and that thought chilled him to the bone.  
  
She shifted—he wasn’t sure how, given how far he’d disappeared into his mind’s eye, but the movement was enough to draw his attention back to her, to realize immediately that she’d seen something of his train of thought, and the smile she gave him when their eyes met again was quiet and sad.  
  
“Maybe,” he said again, and her smile grew a little.  
  
“Or you know,” she said, “I mean, we don’t have to take the _boat_ , right, we could just ask Essek to take us there—”  
  
He frowned, appreciating the distraction. “I am trying to imagine a dark elf in the desert,” he said, and she frowned too.  
  
“Good point,” she said. “An umbrella might not cut it.” She pursed her lips to the side, thinking, and he felt his frown slip away and waited. “How long until you can do what he does?”  
  
“Well,” he said, “I took notes when he did it, and I have the circles to study, but it is…a tricky thing to get right. And even when you get it right, you might still get it wrong, so…it will be a while yet. But I am close. Closer,” he said, because he wanted to give her something to hold onto.  
  
She nodded, accepting this, still thoughtful, and something in him sounded an alarm, told him to retreat, and something else told him he’d taken enough from her already, been selfish enough, laughed enough, needed to return to reality, and practically speaking he really ought to try to get back to sleep—  
  
“Maybe,” she said, her eyes wide as she glanced at him and then suddenly turned back to the sea. “I mean, what if, once you’re able to do it, what if you just took us there?”  
  
An innocuous suggestion, but his heart was pounding and the alarm was still ringing in his mind. “I could probably do it,” he said. “Or at least try.” She nodded, arms folded, and he said, “I’m sure the others—”  
  
“What if,” she said, and now she wasn’t looking at him at all, was once more a shadow against the black sea beyond, “what if it was just you and me?”  
  
“Hm?” he said, staring at her, blinking, as all his thoughts came crashing to a halt.  
  
She turned her head, and the smile on her face was braver than the look in her eyes. “You know,” she said. “What if we just went to find it together?”  
  
Practicality emerged where coherent thought failed. “It’s an eight-day trek through the desert.”  
  
“You have the Hut,” she pointed out. “And I can create water.”  
  
Fair point. “You want,” he said, asking for clarification where none was needed, “to find Picador’s Plum with me?”  
  
She shrugged, still smiling, but diminished, huddling over her arms, her tail curling in around her legs. “Sure,” she said, sounding a bit as if she thought he thought she was crazy and she was trying to be cheerful about it. “If you want.”  
  
He stared at her, beautiful brave perfection amidst a million stars burning with possibilities as endless as the ones he’d seen the first time he gazed into the Beacon, holding her hand.   
  
He wanted to make the impossible possible, yearned and strove after it with every fiber of his being (or so he told himself); and yet she did it daily, effortlessly, and every day a part of him surrendered to that reality and wished it was his own.  
  
He couldn’t accept. Didn’t deserve to accept. And yet with every second of passing silence she withdrew into sadness, and he couldn’t bear it.  
  
“ _Ja_ ,” he said, whispering around the hoarseness in his voice, and in a flash her eyes caught his, wide and waiting. “I’d like that.”  
  
She smiled at him, then, wide and happy, proud and grateful and relieved and hopeful and _no_ , he wanted to tell her, _don’t, I can’t, I’m not_ , but she was smiling and he couldn’t speak, could only smile brokenly back.  
  
Finally—oh, and what did time _matter_ , and yet it ticked inexorably in the recesses of his mind, waiting for him to remember it—she said simply, “It’s a date.”  
  
He rubbed the back of his neck automatically. “ _Ja_ ,” he said again, and then, tripping over himself, desperate to flee, glued to the deck beneath his feet, “well, I look forward to it, and I better get, ah, some rest—”  
  
“So you can study,” she said, and when he stared at her, still grasping at the threads of his excuses, she said, “So you can figure out the spell.”  
  
“Right!” he said, and now her smile turned amused, and he took a desperate step back. “Lots of work to do.”  
  
“As always,” she said, laughing at him with her eyes, too knowing, too fond, and he _yearned_ for it. And instead, he took another step away. “Good night, Caleb.”  
  
“Good night,” he said, “Jester.”  
  
Her eyes flashed to his once more and in that moment he could have forgotten everything but the stars in her eyes and the ones overhead, beckoning him with their silent promise of so many worlds yet to be discovered. He could have taken three steps forward and kissed her, closed his eyes and let her become his universe; and he knew, because no one could resist the spell of the sea at night, that she would have let him; and he thought, seeing the quiet ache hiding in her eyes, that she would have kissed him back.  
  
But he didn’t. He smiled gently at her, though perhaps she saw the ache in his eyes as she smiled back, and then he turned away, from her and the stars and the sea, and made his way below decks, and back to his cabin.  
  
But the sky still peeked through the porthole, and he fell asleep to the sloshing of the waves. And he dreamed of a desert across the sea, and a cave of wonders, and the swirling skirt of blue-skinned tiefling with plum-colored eyes and a dog at her feet; and he smiled and stepped towards her as she took his hands; and in darkness of the cave, they danced together under the diamond stars.


	4. paint-stained fingers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This day and day 5 both got to be way way way too long to be stuck in a collection like this, whoops. [Here's the link to the rest of this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25536790).

The circumstances leading to Jester painting a portrait of Lady Rymmer were far too complicated for this simple tale, as was the ensuing chaos when the portrait was delivered. For now, suffice to say that the Mighty Nein were visiting Port Damali on an errand for the Gentleman, and that Jester had been tasked with painting a flattering portrait of Lord Gabriel Rymmer’s wife.  
  
After much hemming, hawing, rock-paper-scissorsing, thumb warring, and short-straw drawing, Caleb had been elected to cast _seeming_ on himself so that Jester would have an accurate model of Lady Rymmer to work with. While the rest of the Mighy Nein explored the city and presumably stayed out of trouble, the two of them holed up in the girls’ room to work. Or at least, for Jester to work.  
  
“I can’t read?” he asked, as she plucked a book from Lady Rymmer’s fingers.  
  
“Not until I have the initial sketch done,” she told him, struggling to keep a stern expression in the sight of Caleb’s disappointment on Lady Rymmer’s face. “And even then you might have to drop it so I can make sure I’m getting the lighting right.”  
  
He sighed. “Very well.”  
  
She grinned and pulled a chair in front of the open window. “Sit,” she said, and after a moment he did. She glanced at his skirts, thought about asking him to rearrange them, and decided instead to do a bust-up portrait. Really, she could probably get away with just the face, but having a bit of neckline to decorate would give her something to do when she got bored with the limpid blue eyes and curly black locks. Without really thinking about it, she reached to take his chin in her hand; her fingers went through the chin and touched something that felt remarkably like a bottom lip, or at least what she assumed someone else’s bottom lip might feel like, and in any case Caleb squirmed in his chair, trying not to try to jerk away from her touch.  
  
“Sorry!” she said, letting her fingers trail their way down his face until she felt the dimple in his chin, and for a moment she lingered, though she felt her cheeks warm, because she’d always wondered what it would feel like. Like a chin, mostly, just a little soft divot, but it made a perfect cradle for her finger and his breath blew warm and quick over her skin, his breathing shallow, his eyes trained on the ceiling.  
  
([read the rest](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25536790))


	5. Teaching Spells OR Anything Spell/Magic-Related

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This also got way (way way way WAY) too long to be posted in this. [Here's a link to the fic itself](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26108497).

Stupidity, in the end. Everything boiled down to stupidity.  
  
Stupid of them to assume Nicodranas would be safe. Stupid of her to go off on her own. Stupid of the rest of them not to look for her sooner. Stupid of all of them to think they could handle anything.  
  
Stupidity and pride. Same as it had ever been.  
  
And easier to hide behind, to retreat into the anger and the accusation than to grapple with the reality before them, which was Yasha laying Jester’s lifeless body in her bed while Marion Lavorre collapsed in the corner, sobbing.  
  
Veth stood beside her, grasping her hand; Fjord stood in the doorway, helpless; Yasha gently arranged Jester’s limbs, smoothed her hair. Beauregard grabbed Caduceus by the breastplate in the too-small room and yelled up into his face, “ _Do something_.”  
  
Caleb stood behind Fjord, and said nothing.  
  
“I can’t,” Caduceus said, gently placing his hands on Beau’s shoulders. “Not today. It’s been too long. Tomorrow,” he said, and of course he’d already said this once, twice before. “Hey,” he said, as Beau gave a gut-wrenching cry, “c’mere,” and he gathered her into a hug.  
  
A part of Caleb’s mind was infinitely aware of the number of seconds that ticked by holding nothing but the sound of two women crying, and another part of him found it soothing to count the seconds, ignoring what they held, what they meant. _Eins, zwei, drei, vier_ …. Time didn’t matter, anyway. The necessary time had already passed, and now they were simply waiting for the time to come around again. _Fünfundvierzig,_ _sechsundvierzig_ , _siebenundvierzig_. She fell outside the boundaries of _revivify_ , and Caduceus hadn’t prepared _raise dead_. He had the necessary diamond, so once he’d had a chance to sleep, he would cast the spell. And once the spell was cast, all these dramatics would be meaningless.  
  
As meaningless as existence seemed, always, to him, or at least as meaningless as it had once seemed, and now did again, not that anything about it had _changed_. He certainly hadn’t.  
  
Stupid.  
  
  
([read the rest](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26108497))


End file.
